SPriest @ 90 seems very under powered. Am i missing something?

Hi all,

I'll admit, i'm fairly new to priest. I basically made one right before the expansion, and did a few instances as disc. I decided for MoP i'd go shadow. Leveling up wasn't too bad, especially with a prot warrior as a partner. However, now that i'm 90 and doing things on my own a decent amount, it feels like i'm pretty weak. PVE wise taking on anymore than 2 mobs is risky, and somewhat slow; pvp wise, i feel like i can't do anything but die for the most part. I haven't done a ton of pvp honestly, but two that stick out -- a warrior / and a druid, i couldn't even do enough damage to damage them. The warrior's life literally didn't move more than 25%; and the druid just dotted, got out of every slow / stun i could throw at him with ease.

I feel like if i'm stuck right now, not wanting to play the guy i just leveled, and have more interest going back to my mage.

Are spriests really weak at this point? Are they super gear dependent? Help?

dont expect everything to happen at once. Things take time, you need to learn all the spells and what situation is best to use them. Im only 87 and i have no trouble killing people 1v1. Most situations where its 2v1 you arent going to do so well simply because your outnumbered. Places like icy veins and howtopriest.com are your best friends. Study those sites and you'll feel better!

We need a lot of Haste to do pretty well as far as i'm concerned. 8k breakpoint should yield good results. Me and another shadowpriest also topped sha of anger in a group of 40, by a large margin, granted we were aoeing while single targetting (as was everyone else) i think we will be in a good spot for raiding in MoP.

We need a lot of Haste to do pretty well as far as i'm concerned. 8k breakpoint should yield good results. Me and another shadowpriest also topped sha of anger in a group of 40, by a large margin, granted we were aoeing while single targetting (as was everyone else) i think we will be in a good spot for raiding in MoP.

dark binding, mind flay and mind spike. mind spike is the only one that actually directly gives a dps increase in raids (though very minimal) but mind flay could technically give a dps boost, since you'll move faster and cast earlier if you need to move out of fire.

dark binding, mind flay and mind spike. mind spike is the only one that actually directly gives a dps increase in raids (though very minimal) but mind flay could technically give a dps boost, since you'll move faster and cast earlier if you need to move out of fire.

You guys out dps'd blood dks? Even doing random heroics, their dps is off the charts. level 87's in ilvl 410 gear doing 35k+

Priests have always been incredibly gear dependent, the reason I think is that if you balance damage for near-to-maximum dps (which Blizzard does) for every additional base damage multiplier you put on things (ie. Shadowform, 5% additional magic damage received, 10% more spellpower, etc), the underlying damage has to be lower to compensate for the multiplicative effect. So a spec that receives no base damage gains (ie. frost mages, arcane mages) don't feel as gear dependent as something like shadow that does receive additional multiplicative effects beyond what raid buffs bring (all classes receive these, but because they amplify the impact of spec specific gains, I needed to mention them).

So if raid gear and good players with the same full raid buffs results in near-equal dps - but one class is doing so by via an additional 15% damage buff like shadowform - then the underlying damage has to be lower at low gear levels, in order that the resulting multiplicative gain of all these damage buff effects is the same dps when in the conditions that pve dps is balanced for (raid dps for more or less single target fights).

So mage specs will often feel less gear dependent than shadow or boomkins I think because of the above.

With that said, I'm sure we can do a lot to up your dps by reviewing this handy guide linked below!

My take is that it feels a lot like early cata with weak gear. Grinding out heroic content blizzards "just multidot stupid" strategy just isn't viable. Any competent group of players is going to kill trash packs too quickly for that to be viable and mindsear with typical trash-pack sizes (3-5 mobs) is sub par DPS. I'm not sure what to do on trash except accept the fact that I don't play a class that does well in small group content. I'm anticipating a mind sear buff in a few weeks (once the casual croud gets to 90 and starts poking at heroics). This nonsense happens every expansion: it's not worth getting worked u p over.

On boss encounters with multiple mobs that don't die to fast I do very well. On single target tank and spanks I'm competitive with everyone else. My group is rather poorly geared (mid-450s) but it seems like for raiding we'll be alright. As we get closer to full heroic gear I think things will probably level out - we may not be dominant but I think we'll be viable when we get to ilevel 470 or so.

I'll admit, i'm fairly new to priest. I basically made one right before the expansion, and did a few instances as disc. I decided for MoP i'd go shadow. Leveling up wasn't too bad, especially with a prot warrior as a partner. However, now that i'm 90 and doing things on my own a decent amount, it feels like i'm pretty weak. PVE wise taking on anymore than 2 mobs is risky, and somewhat slow; pvp wise, i feel like i can't do anything but die for the most part. I haven't done a ton of pvp honestly, but two that stick out -- a warrior / and a druid, i couldn't even do enough damage to damage them. The warrior's life literally didn't move more than 25%; and the druid just dotted, got out of every slow / stun i could throw at him with ease.

I feel like if i'm stuck right now, not wanting to play the guy i just leveled, and have more interest going back to my mage.

Are spriests really weak at this point? Are they super gear dependent? Help?

What? Really?? PVE wise I tend to pull 3-4 mobs at a time, anything less is boring. Use CC's, a la void tendrils and psychic scream, VE to keep you up. Mindbender/fade + heal when shit hits the fan. Disperse won't save you, lol.
I'm at 90 now and the only lackluster is in heroics, where the deeps sucks. Most likely due to low haste.

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I've been levelling as shadow and am LOL'ing at how good we are now at questing. Can pull 4-5 mobs a time without much sweat, and have tanked elites. If you are having trouble with 2 mobs then you are likely missing something indeed.

Haven't done a lot of PvP yet but the word on the street is that we're FOTM. Survivability has gone up a ton with the new talent tree options comapred to previous expansions.

Haven't gotten into heroics yet so can't really comment there, and I mostly play Disc. Shadow however seems to have similar trouble to most dot classes and kind of falls flat vs groups of 4-5 mobs that die relatively quickly. Can't get dots up fast enough and mind sear is kind of weak unless used on much larger groups. The single target damage however seems fairly competitive at the moment, and we can really shine on groups of 2-3 mobs.

Haven't gotten into heroics yet so can't really comment there, and I mostly play Disc. Shadow however seems to have similar trouble to most dot classes and kind of falls flat vs groups of 4-5 mobs that die relatively quickly. Can't get dots up fast enough and mind sear is kind of weak unless used on much larger groups.

This is very true. I've been doing heroics and have a very hard time keeping up with other classes on trash. Sometimes by the end I can catch up to some of the others, but its done through a tedious (not fun) process of DoTs on every mob, using procs and mind seering for a tick or two between. Bosses are fine - and as you said, with a group of 2+ with a large pool of HP (1.5 million+) you can really get things going.

I am wondering the same thing... Are we really that gear dependent atm? I have item level 461 at this moment, with almost the best pre-raid gear from heroic dungeons and still I am struggling VERY much with my dps. I have weakauras tracking my dots and cooldowns and Halopro telling me the range where to use Halo. Here is my priority list:

Shadowfiend (I use Shadowfiend at the beginning of the fight so I might have a chance to reuse it at the end)
DP with 3orbs
SW: D
MB
SW:P
VT
Halo
Mind spike proc
MF

With this I manage to do 31k dps at Raider's training dummy and about 35-36k at stand still single target bosses. Even at two targets I can't pull more dps because I feel that I don't have the ground CDs to use all the procs. Is the FDCL talent rubbish or is it useful up to two target encounters, like the dps-guide says?

At some encounters I notice that I miss that MB is off cd but only for 1-2 seconds. Also because the MS proc I tend to sometimes prioritize it over my dots and they fall of for 1-2seconds. Are these the critical things that are out scaling my dps if you compere it at DK/Paladin dps.

I really need help with this.. When I'm doing heroics with my guild mates they can do +12k more dps with their paladins and DKs saying "I don't have a clue what I am doing" AND they also have -10 my ilvl.

You guys out dps'd blood dks? Even doing random heroics, their dps is off the charts. level 87's in ilvl 410 gear doing 35k+

While leveling, it's very much expected that dks, palas or druid tanks outdps the dps-ers even on bosses. Not for warrior tanks cause they suck ass at dps (and aoe threat...and single target threat, etc but then warriors are always subpar in all aspects of the game so...).